


Memories of Future Mistakes

by KidoCastle_Gaurd



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: AND IT GAVE ME A HALF-ASS ENDING!!!, All his growth went down the fucking drain, BAMF Lance (Voltron), Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Cuban Lance (Voltron), Genderfluid Character, I Ship It, I don't know the difference :/, I gave the show the benefit of the doubt the entire series, Lance (Voltron)-centric, Lance doesn't know spanish, Lance is underappreciated, Lots of OC interaction, Lots of OCs - Freeform, M/M, Nonbinary Character, Past Allura/Lance (Voltron), Pidge is Pidge, Pining Keith (Voltron), Post-Canon, Post-Canon Fix-It, VS, autistic author, but they did it dirty, no one realizes he is one, will add more tags
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-10
Updated: 2019-08-24
Packaged: 2020-04-23 21:09:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 19,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19159039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KidoCastle_Gaurd/pseuds/KidoCastle_Gaurd
Summary: Lance's journey started with the Blue Lion, and when it left, so did his journey end. He doesn't live the extravagant, all encompassing life like his friends when Voltron left. Instead Lance settled down to a modest more peaceful one, working on his family farm. The most excitement he get now is when Lance venture off to another planet to give a motivational speech. But even then, most of the planets are stable and peaceful. Despite the fact that Lance's life isn't the Adrenalin pumping, flashy life he imagine growing up. It's still his life, and he's happy with it.Then Keith comes and asks for Lance help.___________This is my first posted story. It has to do a lot with OCs so if you don't like don't read.





	1. Chapter 1

“Tio Lance, Tio Lance!" 

Two young children, one boy and one girl, ran across a field of flowers that were yet to unfurl from their buds. They ran while shouting and trying to out race the other, heading to a barn where their supposed target hid.

The girl was the first to reach the barn doors, sneaking in a smirk to her brother before entering.

“Tio Lance, you have a call for you!” she shouted.

In the barn stood a cow with a unique branding on its hip, accompany by a young calf that quickly left the safety of its mother to stumble to the children.

Finally a wide brim, straw hat appeared from behind the cow, along with a young man attached to the hat.

“What was that?” the man asked, flicking his hat to get a better view of the two guest.

“Tio! Nadia said you have a call waiting for you!” the boy responded, dividing his attention to his uncle and the calf in front of him.

“What Sylvio said!” Nadia concurred.

Lance carefully shuffled around his cow, Kaltanecker, to grab a towel hanging on one of the stalls. “A call, a call from who?” he asked wiping his hands cleans.

The two kids took a break from petting the calf to look to their uncle, “From Keith!” 

* * *

“I’m back!” Lance announced when he crossed the threshold of his house. He quickly shed his dirty flannel and hat while trying to do the same with his boots.

“Lance, over here!” He heard his mother call from the living room. “Keith waiting for you on the line!”

“I’m coming!” Lance shouted back making his way to the living room where his mom was sitting with a familiar face projected on the screen in front of her.

“There you are, where were you?” his mother asked and stood up from her spot.

"I was all the way at the barn,” Lance explained while taking a spot on the couch.

“Oh, that’s what I forgot to mention. Keith just last week Kalternecker gave birth to a healthy calf!” she gleamed.

The project of Keith gave out a chuckle, “Really, that’s good to hear. What’s their name?”

“Lance Junior,” Lance quipped earning him a light smack from his mother and another laugh from Keith.

“Lancito,” his mother scolded before turning to Keith. “ Keith don’t believe him. He actually named the calf Ceilo.”

“It mean ‘sky’,” Lance added. “You know, since his mom’s from space and all.”

“Really, that’s nice.” Keith gave a small smile.

“Well, I’ll leave you boys be,” Lance mother announced finally moving away from the couch. “If you need anything I’ll be in the kitchen making dinner.”

“Alright, thanks, Mom,” Lance called back to his mother’s retreating form before turning his attention to Keith.

“So, what’s up, man? I see that your hair is finally a decent length.” Lance commented. Taking a good look at the other before him, Lance notice the shoulder length hair that was partially covering Keith’s scar on his cheek.

Keith quickly brought a hand to a piece of hair that was resting on his shoulders. “It’s basically the same length when we first came back to earth,” he argued, huffing at Lance at the other side of the screen.

“No, back then it was a mullet,” Lance quickly counter. “Then you shaved off your entire head.”

“Okay first of all, I did not shave my head. I cut my hair to a regular length.”

“Agree to disagree.”

“Second, how is my hair any different from back then?”

“I just said, it’s not a mullet.”

“I never had a mullet!”

“It was short in the front and long in the back. You know what they call that Keith? A MULLET!”

“I-” Keith huffed and his cheek lit red from either angry or embarrassment from a lack of a comeback, either one was good in Lance’s book.

“Well at least I actually changed my hairstyle,” Keith finally responded.

Lance gasped in mock offense. “How dare you say that. My hairstyle is, and will forever be the pinnacle of Lance Perfection.”

“Oh, please. Even Pidge changed their style,” Keith brought up.

“No, all that Pidge did was finally brush her rat-nest of a hair.”

“Or…”

Lance squinted to the smirk that was slowly forming on Keith’s face. “Or…?”

“Or maybe, the reason why to have the same haircut, it’s because you can’t get another haircut,” Keith trailed.

“What are you saying, Mullet?”

"It’s not a mullet. And I’m saying that you can’t pull off any other hairstyle. You’re just stuck with the one,” Keith finished leaning back from the screen.

If steam could blow out of Lance’s ears, it probably would. “How dare you spew out such hederickcy-”

“That’s not how you say that.”

“Whatever, what I’m saying is: this,” Lance moved to sit up right to give a better view of himself. “Isn’t just some flimsy off brand product. This, is Lance McClain. 100% genuine Paladin of Voltron. Savior of the Multiverse!”

From the other side of the side of the screen, Keith was visibly struggling to kept his laughter in check. “Geez, Lance, you’re so full of it. I don’t even know what you mean.”

“Alright, let me explain it in a way even a savage, desert boy like you can understand.

“I am the one and only Lance McClain. People come to see Lance McClain. And people have picture of Lance McClain that only I can be.”

“So you’re saying people around the universe only recognized you by your hair?”

Lance leveled Keith with the flattest look he muster. “You know what? Let’s just drop it. Just drop it.” Lance didn’t even look at the screen to know that Keith was shaking with laughter.

“So, changing gears,” Lance clapped his hand to get the other’s attention. “Why’d you call?”

Keith cleared his throat, a couple of chuckles still escaping, “Yeah, about that, um, I called to ask a favor.”

A delicate eyebrow rose slowly on Lance face, “A favor?”

“Uh, yeah,” Keith fidgeted from his side of the screen. “Yeah, um… I know you haven’t really done anything outside of you spreading out your word and all that. But, uh, it would really help out if you could join me on a mission.”

Lance had to pause, soaking in the words properly before he was able to form a response. “Like one of your humanitarian missions?” he questioned, not quite sure what the other was asking.

“No, not like one of those,” the other trailed off slightly. “You remember that monster we fought when we first started heading back to Earth? After that whole time skip?”

“You mean the one that nearly bit off mines and Hunk’s head off, but really it was yours and that Galra commander it was trying to bite?”

“Yeah, that’s the one. Well, we found it.”

“...What?”

“That monster is still alive and we manage to track it on an isolated planet,” Keith further explained.

“Didn’t it get blown to bits in a Galra cruiser explosion!?”

On the other side of the screen, Keith shrugged his shoulders, unconsciously tucking his hair behind his ear. Another faint scar came into view, a small and new cut almost unnoticeable.

“Well, it did, but apparently, it's a lot tougher than we thought,” Keith explain. “We have a sure-fire way to take it down, but we need non-Galras to watch our backs. I already got the others to help out but we could really use your skills.”

Keith sat upright on his side of the screen, shoulders squared and eyebrows in a slight scowl. There in his eyes where the eyes of a leader who knew what they were doing even if they didn’t know it.

Lance couldn’t help to notice how different this Keith was from the first time they meet. This Keith was so different from the cadet that would purposely isolate himself from others and got into petty fights. The Keith who became the Red Paladin but still had little idea who to interact with other people. And finally, the Keith who once doubted himself as Shiro’s successor. 

Now he was a prominent member of the Blade of Marmora. He was helping the Galra race transition from their old archaic ways to a more peaceful existence.

Keith has changed and grown up so much.

While Lance on the other hand.

“Thanks, Keith, but,” Lance started to say. “But I don’t think I’ll be much help.”

Keith’s eyes widen, his shocked expression was a bit hilarious from Lance point of view.

"I mean, it’s bit awhile since I last saw any action,” Lance attempted. “Well, actually, I haven’t been in any combat situation since… you know.”

Lance wasn’t looking at the screen screen but he could practically see Keith’s fallen face.

Silence took over both side of the screen. Old memories resurfaced leaving a dull ache in its wake.

“Ah Dios mio, this is awkward,” a new voice piped up.

Lance head snapped up to the direction of the voice and found his sister, Rachel, standing at the entrance of the living room.

“What are you doing here!? How-How long were you here!?” Lance stuttered out, standing up from the couch. In the distance, Lance could hear Keith asking who it was.

Rachel rolled her eyes before dropping her bag and putting her hands on her hips. “Uh, excuse you, but I live here,” Rachel huffed out. “And second, I have no idea what’s going on other than you sitting in our living room all alone.”

“Lance, who are you talking to?” Keith asked louder, catching the two siblings’ attention.

“Oh, is that Keith!” Rachel ignored Lance squawks and attempts to push her from the couch in exchange for evicting her brother from his spot. “Hi, Keith, remember me? Rachel?”

“Hi, Racheal,” Keith waved.

“Oh my god, Rachel. Leave! Me and Keith are having an important conversation.” Lance sat as close as he could to his sister and shoved her.

Under other sibling-based circumstances, the other person might of bugde, but this was the McClain household. A house that five children grew up in. So, Rachel did not move but shoved against Lance in retaliation.

“What important business? You guys weren’t talking about anything.” Rachel shoved once more, almost dislodging Lance from his spot.

Lance readjusted his footing to shove back. “None of your business, important business.”

“Actually, I was just asking Lance about going on a mission with the old team,” Keith smiled.

Rachel automatically smiled at the Keith before turning back to her brother. “What? A mission with the old team. Lance, you should totally do it!”

“No, I shouldn't,” Lance blurted out, his cheeks turning red.

Rachel frown at Lance answer, “What? Why not?”

“He says he’s out of practice,” Keith supplied.

Rachel let out a bark of laughter. “Out of practice? Yeah right. Lance been doing drills like it’s going out of style.”

At the new piece of information, Keith lifted an eyebrow. “Oh, really?”

“No, no, no, no, no, no, no! Do not listen to a single word that comes out of this heathen’s mouth.” Lance argued back.

“And you.” Lance leveled the meanest glare he could to his sister. “Leave!” he whispered between clenched teeth, doubling his effort to push Rachel off the couch.

“Oh, yeah,” Rachel continued. “Silvio and Nadia have been begging Lance to teach them some cool paladin-moves.” She smirked as she and her brother pushed against each other.

“Oh my- MOM~~~~!!! Rachel is butting into my private conversation!” Lance shouted out the living room.

“MOM~~~~!!! Lance is totally trying to ditch his friends!” 

“Rachel!”

“Lance!”

The two siblings were caught into a deadlock. The sister smirking while the brother frowned back at her.

“Kids! What are you two arguing about?” Mrs. McClain walked into the living room where her two youngest children were at. Both children, who were in fact adults.

“Keith asked for Lance’s help and Lance said no,” Rachel was the first to respond to their mother.

“Which,” Lance quickly added, “is none of your business.”

“True, I see your point, Lance,” Mrs. McClain shrugged, causing a flip of the two squabbling sibling mood.

“Hah!” Lance gloated shoving a pointed finger to Rachel.

“Although, I have to agree with Rachel. If Keith is asking for help, you should help him.”

Again the grin returned to Rachel as she slapped Lance with the back of her hand, “Hah!”

“But at the end of the day, this is Lance decision and we should let him decide.”

This time, Lance smacked his sister with a pillow when the grin moved back to him.

“So come on, Rachel. Let the boys be.” Mrs. McClain motion for her daughter to follow.

Rachel let out a groan but reluctantly followed her mother out of the room.

“Beside, I know whatever Lance will decide: it’ll be the right choice.”

Why couldn’t Lance’s mom just be on his side.

He caught a look at Rachel smug face right before she and her mom step out of the living room. So Lance did the only rational thing he could think of when their mom wasn’t looking.

He gave his sister the bird.

Keith's almost silent laughter brought the brunette’s attention to the call they were having. “Wow, do you and your sister always get into arguments like that?”

Lance just deflated on the couch in front of the screen. “Oh, please. That’s just standard brother and sister interaction. If you have a sibling, you’re gonna argue with each other and butt into each other’s business. It’s like, the law.”

“Isn’t it also law for friends to help each other out?” Keith asked with a hint of smugness gleaming in his eyes.

Lance just stared at the screen that showed his friend and brother in arms. _“Ugh~~~ **Fine.** _ I’ll come out of retirement just for you.”

That earned another chuckle from Keith, “Why are you always so dramatic?”

“Hey, I said I was going to help you so don’t complain about it.”

“I never complained,” Keith quipped back with a smile on his lips.

Lance copied the smile, their friendly banter coming back easily to each other. “Sure you didn’t. So-” Lance clapped his hands together to finally bring them to the topic they had at hand. “When is this monster-hunting-expedition happening?”

“At the end of the next movement. Pidge said that they can get you to the Atlas so you just have to get to Garrison from where you’re at. Hunk and Shiro are already tying up the last details of their mission so the Atlas is where we’re all going rendezvous at.”

“Whoa,” it was almost freaking how fast Keith went to friend to leader mode. “So we’re getting everyone, everyone?” It was also starting to dawn on Lance that all the former paladins were coming together. Sure, they’ve gotten together once a year for the anniversary of Universal Peace, but this was a mission-mission.

“Well, yeah. We’re basically the only ones who actually fought the thing, so it make sense that we all be there.”

Fair point. “Although technically it’s more like you and that Galra commander fought it”

“And you were there and know what kind of damage it can do,” Keith counter back. “Lance, do you not want to come?”

Geezus, the look on Keith’s face should not be tugging on Lance’s heartstring like that. Keith is supposed to be 20-something years old. He’s not supposed to be that cute.

“No, no, of course I want to come! It’s just nerves you know.” Lance gave his best reassuring smile he could. “I mean it’s been what? Two, three years since we all saw action together?”

“I guess you got point there. But then again, I wouldn’t be asking if you weren’t the best of the best, right?” Keith smiled back.

Something was happening here. Lance didn’t know exactly what it was but every once and a while Keith would get this soft look and suddenly it felt like Lance stepped into enemy territory. 

“You guess!?” Lance quickly try to change the atmosphere. “What do you mean ‘you guess’? Come on, man. Everyone knows I’m the best ninja-slash-sharpshooter-slash-pilot there ever was,” he preened.

Keith gave a soft chuckle, which okay, the weird mood was still there but it was more diluted and more manageable. “You’re right, you’re right.”

Nevermind, it was coming back. Abort, Lance! Abort!

“Damn right, I’m right. Glad I could clear up any confusion. So, I’ll see you next Thursday?” Lance tried to just change the subject entirely.

“Actually it won’t be until Saturday when we actually start the whole mission briefing.”

“Great so saturday it is then. I’ll let you off, now. I bet you’re still busy with all the blade stuff,” Lance quickly tried to close.

“Wait, don’t you still need to hear how to get to Atlas?”

“Nah, I’ll just get the deets from Pidge since, you know, that’s her thing.”

“Oh, yeah okay…”

He sounds so sad now! Why does he sound so sad.

“Yeah, man, don’t sweat it. We all gotta carry our weight around, right,Team Leader,” Lance saluted.

The deadly smile came back to Keith’s face and Lance felt he just cartwheeled back into enemy territory.

“Yeah , you’re right. That’s why I need my right hand man in this.”

Alright, Lance did not cartwheeled back to enemy territory. He full on launched himself.

“Yeah~~~~,” Lance chuckled out nervously. God, it felt like he was going around in circles now. “So see you Sunday.”

“Saturday.”

“Yeah, I mean- yeah see you Saturday, dude.”

Keith’s smile grew a fraction wider, “See you later, sharpshooter,” and finally ended the call.

Lance froze staring at the blackout screen before he deflated on the couch he was sitting on. He was pretty sure his face was starting to blush but now he could practically feel the blood rushing to his cheek.

“Jeez, get it together, Lance,” he scolded himself. Why was he blushing for? Some secondhand embarrassment?

When Lance was finally able to calm his nerves, he decided to make do with his promise and call Pidge about the pick up he’ll need for the mission. Walking to the exit of the living room, Lance notice someone standing there.

His sister, Rachel.

“What!?” he hissed out when he saw his smug look.

Rachel’s smirk only grew wider. “Nothing, sharpshooter,” she teased.

Blood rushed back to his cheek, “Wha- Tha- that’s…”

“None of my business?” Rachel finished off.

Lance knew a losing battle when he saw one. That doesn’t mean he didn’t try to get in the last shot. “Yeah, exactly!” Lance huffed and move as quickly as possible past his sister to where his boots where at and walked right out the door.

Ugh, sisters were the worst.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance may not know exactly what is his relationship is with Keith anymore. But in the end it doesn't really matter. They're friends. And that's what's important.

Friday night Lance was packing up his clothes and other essentials into his bag. According to Pidge, the mission should only last about 4 days so there wasn’t any need to pack in too much stuff for his stay on the Atlas. Lance did pack in some of his beauty products in his bags, though. Like hell he was going to skip four full days of his routine. If he could keep up his nightly routine when he first shot out into space with nothing but the clothes on his back; then he could still do it now. Besides, this wasn’t any different from when he goes off to give his speeches on alien planets. Just instead of talking, he’ll be fighting. Which he hasn’t done in a while. 

Lance let out a puff of frustration when he felt the negative thoughts rearing their big, ugly head. He was getting way to hype up about this and not in a good way. 

Checking off his mental checklist, Lance made sure he had everything he needed before zipping up his bag and setting it on the floor. Pidge would be coming early tomorrow morning to pick him up, and they’d be wormed holed to space to wherever Atlas was at. 

All of Lance friends have gone off and done huge contribution to universe. Pidge being the tech genius she was; was able to integrate Earth tech, Galra tech, and Altea tech into one seamless interchangeable interface while continuing on improving data security and storage. Hunk went to a fiddling unsure mechanic with a passion to food to a universal renowned negotiator with a fine cuisine empire on the side. Then Keith went from moody, loose-cannon, emo to leader of the widest known humanitarian organization that is the new Blade of Marmora. The only one who didn’t really change all too much was Shiro. Then again he did go from pilot of the Kerberos mission to the Black Paladin to the face of Voltron to the captain of the Atlas. The Atlas, one of the latest and well equipped space vessels ever to come out, second only to its predecessor the Castle of Lions. Leading the universe in peace and cooperation by example. 

As for Lance, himself. Well turned out space wasn’t all it cracked up to be. To him, space was an empty void swallowing everything and anything in its path. It flooded in isolation and insecurity both his own and his team. In space Lance was presented a choice. Does he fight to better himself or does he fight to better his team? 

In the end he chose the only choice there really was: his team. 

So when the Blue Lion left a year after Allura sacrifice. So did Lance journey end. 

He was no longer that brash teen that climbed into the Blue Lion and plopped right on the pilot seat. He was no longer the adventure seeking teen that unwittingly blasted himself and others to a far off planet. He was no longer the hopeless flirt that tried to get every girls’ attention. He was no longer an integral part that stabilize or move Voltron to its winning victory. He was no longer the paladin who had to sacrifice everything to fight for the right of existence. 

He was now just Lance. 

Lance, a young man from Cuba that grew up in the States and helped out on his family farm. 

He dreamed of space, went there, and came back. He accomplish his dream and was now living a peaceful life. His friends might of found a higher calling but Lance duties ended with Voltron. It was the only thing keeping him away, so it was only natural with it being gone that Lance would have settle far more quicker than the others. 

But Keith had called for him. Asked for him specifically and Lance answered. 

His relationship with Keith shifted in the last year, give or take. Lance didn’t know what exactly caused the change and felt like an idiot that he couldn’t figure out when or why his friendship with Keith shifted, but it happened. 

Lance laid staring up at his ceiling. Realizing he had been staring at his ceiling for the past, he looked at his clock, two hours. When did he even get underneath the covers. 

A long sigh escaped Lance lips as he began to his shut down his tired brain. If he didn’t try to sleep now then Pidge will storm in his room like a hurricane and rip the sheets off his bed. 

Lance grabbed the eye mask on his nightstand and pulled it over his eyes. Shutting out any jitters or intrusive thoughts. He picture the calming sea at sunset. The rolling waves that would rhythmically rock him. 

Tomorrow was a new day, and Lance needed his beauty sleep. 

* * *

“Lance! You up!?” 

Something smack the sleeping brunette right on eyes, jolting Lance up and tearing off whatever assaulted him with one hand and throwing his pillow towards the voice of the intruder with the other. 

“Hey, what the hell, man?” shouted the voice. 

Enough of Lance cognitive functions came online for him to focus his eyes and recognized the voice. 

“Pidge? What are you doing here?” 

The now young adult old rolled their eyes. “I came to pick you up for the mission, remember?” 

It took a bit longer for Lance to process the information, but he got it. “Oh, right, the mission. Is it time already?” He took a look at the clock and it read at 5:53 am. He also saw he eye mask in his hand. Pidge must of snapped it on his eyelids. 

Pidge toss the pillow back to Lance’s bed. “Nah, we still got time. Come on, your mom made us pancakes for breakfast.” Pidge hurried to the door where the smell of pancakes was starting to filter to room. 

“I’m coming, I’m coming. Lemme change first.” Lance dismissed his friend as he rose from his bed and shuffled to his dresser where his clothes were already set up for the day. 

“Ugh, you would think being a paladin of Voltron would make you get ready faster. Glad some things never change,” Pidge remark from her spot on the door way. 

“I’m retired, Pidge. I can go as slow as I want.” Lance proved his by slowing down even more. 

Pidge rolled their eyes, “You’re such an old man.” 

“Hey, respect your elders, young lady. ‘Sides your the one keeping the door open.” Lance pointed out. 

Pidge rolled their eye again and gave a half hearted salute. “Whatever you say, dude,” and they closed the door leaving Lance to change at any pace he saw fit. 

A few minutes later, Lance came down stair and dropped his bag in the living room before entering the kitchen. There Pidge was already situated at the table with a plate of pancakes, eggs, and bacon being eaten. Lance parents were also there with his dad sitting at the head of table with a cup of coffee in one hand and the daily news in the other. Lance mother was preparing a plate and was the first to notice her son. 

“Lance, your up. How did you sleep last night?” his mother asked. 

“Good, good,” he responded taking a seat at the table. His mom set the plate in front of him and then moved back to the stove to make another plate. 

“Mrs. McClain, have I ever told you how much I love your peanut butter pancakes?” Pidge asked with a mouth still full of pancakes. 

“Oh, darling, you know I can give you the recipe if you want,” Mrs. McClain smiled back 

“No,” Pidge quickly interjected. “I don’t want to ruin the magic.” 

Mr. McClain chuckled at the remark, “Well then I guess you have no choice but to come here more often.” 

“Exactly,” a mouth full of pancakes affirmed. 

That earn another smiles from the McClains. It was a natural things for all Lance’s friends to slip in naturally with his family. While Pidge indulge herself in the food and the fierce competition that was the McClain’s game night, Hunk would slip himself with Lance’s mom and sister-in-law. The three would often be heard trading gossip and recipes that would catch the nosy interest of anyone passing by. Shiro would be with his father and brothers trading adventures and small anecdotes. Keith took a little longer to warm up to the family but Nadia and Silvio absolutely adore him and would drag awkward man anywhere and everywhere. Unless Coran was there, then the twins would completely forget whatever cool thing they wanted to do in exchange for Coran’s wild and unbelievable stories. 

Lance took a couple more bites of his breakfast before moving away from his seat for the coffee maker. 

“Lancito, don’t drink that. You’re going to end up a coffee addict like your father,” Mrs. McClain scolded lightly. 

“But, Mom, it’s too early and I need it,” Lance whined back, pouring in sugar and creamer in his coffee. 

“I’ll cheer to that,” Mr. McClain cheered with his own coffee. 

“One of us. One of us,” Pidge chanted in as well. 

See, his friends and family were one of the same. 

Lance hummed taking a sip of coffee on his way back to his seat. “But I can see what you mean,” he joked. 

Both Mr. McClain and Pidge shared a looked of mocked hurt. 

“I can’t believe it. Maria, you’re turning my own son against me,” Mr. McClain voiced to his wife. 

“Don’t worry, Mr. McClain. I got your back,” Pidge console back to the older McClain. 

“Thank you, Pidge,” Mr. McClain wipe a fake tear off his cheek. “You make me proud to call you my honorary child.” 

Mrs. McClain chuckled at her husband antics while sitting down with her own plate. “You just upset that I’m Lancito’s favorite.” 

“No~~~~. No, no, no, I am not being dragged into that again.” Lance quickly protested. “This is breakfast time, not squabble time.” Lance quickly shove more food into his mouth as proof. 

Pidge laughter rung out loud and true, “Oh, man, I got here that story!” 

“No you don’t!” Lance interjected with food still in his mouth. 

His father only smiled harder. “Don’t worry, son. I’ll tell you about it later,” he promise Pidge. 

Ugh. Sometimes his friends fit a little too well into his family. 

As breakfast continued on, the other McClains slowly woke up one by one. Pidge and Lance stood around a little longer to chat with the family but eventually made their way out and off into the aircraft Pidge came in. 

It was a quick trip to the Garrison with the teleduv that would lead them to the general sector that Atlas was currently in. They had some time to kill so Lance decided to sneak in a nap. 

“So…” 

Or Lance would of if Pidge didn’t give him the weird side-eye look. 

“So…?” Lance repeated. 

Pidge shrugged their shoulders, looking back to stars in front of them. “I dunno, I guess I wasn’t expecting you to come,” they admitted. 

Lance lifted a brow, staring at the profile of his friend and former teammate. “Why wouldn’t I come?” Lance tried to probe further. 

Again Pidge shrugged again, “I dunno, I think Keith got this weird idea stuck in our head about not bother you about this kind of stuff.” 

Lance waited for Pidge to continue, but she did not. 

“Pidge you’re gonna have to throw me a bone here. I have no idea what you’re talking about.” 

This time Pidge rolled their eyes. “Seriously, Lance. You never noticed how weird Keith gets when he talks about ground mission?” 

“No,” Lance replied with just as much snark. “I didn’t even know he still did ground mission!?” 

“Well, that explains a lot.” 

“Obviously!” the taller of the two huffed out. 

“Well anyways, Keith gets weirdly protected around you when it comes to ground mission. Like when it comes to me or Hunk he’s like ‘hey I need your help in this’. After a short hello, mind you. But whenever we even say your name during these talks, all of a sudden he like ‘No, Lance is probably busy with other stuff’ or ‘No, we can’t bug Lance about this problem. It’s not worth his time’ or whatever.” Pidge began to wave their hands to the void in front of them. “It’s like ‘okay, good to know you’ll totally bug me and Hunk about this, but all of a sudden it’s not a big enough issue for Lance?’ It’s been driving me and Hunk crazy! 

“And me and Hunk tried to get him to tell us why he doesn’t like asking you for help but he just comes up with some bullshit answer like: ‘I can’t do that, he’s retired now’. Yeah no shit!” 

Lance stayed quiet during Pidge’s rant. 

“If that’s true, then why did he call me?” 

“Because! Me and Hunk had to hunker him down and convince him to!” Pidge burst. “We even had to enlist Shiro’s help, Lance. _Shiro!_ Who might I add, had been no help with Keith’s ‘Can’t bug Lance with this kind of stuff’ problem. And I know that white haired son-of-a-bitch knows something!” They continue to swear. “But like any wise, cryptic-ass leader, he doesn’t tell us!” 

“Okay,” Lance lean back from the raging techie. “I get the feeling there something else I’m missing here.” 

“YES, YOU ARE!” Pidge jumped out of their seat and smashed their hands on the control panel. Which might have been bad if it wasn’t on lock. 

“When it comes to Shiro, Keith has no problem asking him for help and eventually Shiro led me in that way, too. Hunk was a little harder to convince because of his food empire and stuff but Keith got over it soon enough. But YOU!” They pointed menacing at the former blue paladin of Voltron. “Ancients forbid we ask you for help.” Pidge pulled back their finger to place her hands on her hip. “At first we didn’t think nothing about it. But slowly like a snowball, it kept getting bigger and bigger. Especially these past couple of months.” A harsh glare took over Pidge’s expression as they leaned closer to Lance’s space. 

“Why are you getting mad at me for!? I’m just a innocent bystander! I got nothing to do with Keith weird Galra instincts!” 

Pidge rolled their eyes at Lance’s retort and took a seat back their chair. “It’s probably just a Keith thing and not a Galra thing. But it totally got to do with you.” 

In the distance a large white ship could be seen apart from the stars and galaxy. 

“Took us a while to get Keith to let you in. But as soon as we did, he was the first to say he was the one that needed to contact you.” Pidge began to fiddling with the controls of the ship. Hailing the Atlas that could now be clearly distinguished. 

“Took him almost two whole movements to tell you, too.” 

Wait two whole movements!? That mean everyone was into the plan at least a month before Lance came in. 

“That dirty son-of-a-mullet,” Lance whisper out. 

Pidge blinked in confusion, “wha?” 

“He doesn’t think I’m any help!” Lance grounded out louder. 

“Is this, is this about Keith still?” 

“Of course this is about Keith! He think just because I’m in retirement I can’t get back into action.” 

“Hmm, yeah I don’t think that’s it,” Pidge tried to reason. 

“What other reason can it be, Pidge? Everyone know Shiro practically sweat and bathe in Space Soldier. Hunk gotta keep up with his training ‘cause of all the politically unstable places he goes to. And you do whatever,” Lance paused gesturing to Pidge. “It is that you do,” he finished lamely. 

“I live on a farm, Pidge. A FARM. Keith probably thinks all I do is lounge around in a pair of ugly overalls riding a tractor. Well I’ll have you know that living on a farm is a lot of hard work! You gotta wake up at the crack ass of dawn to move all the animals out of the barn. You gotta shove out the old hay and bring in the new one. Feed all the livestock the proper amount so you don’t under fed or over fed. Make sure each and every animal is happy and healthy. And that’s just the bare basic for the cows, and chickens, and goats, and sheeps, and horses, and all the other eating, breathing stuff. I still gotta squeeze in time for the Juniberry fields, the crops we eat, the other crops we don’t eat, fence maintenance, equipment maintenance, building maintenance, making the butter and cheese and bread and other goods that comes out of our farm, and god forbid just old basic me time so I don’t run myself into the ground.” 

The two were now docking on the Atlas, although Lance hasn’t notice yet. 

“Its so. Much. Work! Pidge. So much.” Lance began to slouch in his seat and bringing his hands to his face. “Sometime I wonder was worst. Doing drills all day or hauling hay in the middle of the day.” he continued to mumble in his hands. “And the babies!” Lance shot up again. 

“Oh my god, the babies! They’re so cute to look at but a nightmare to deal with. You don’t know what could wrong with the pregnancy. If they’re born with some kind of chronic illness you’ve never seen before. Or the absolute worst! They hurt themselves and you got no idea how, so you can’t rid of whatever thing they hurt themselves with, and it could happen again! And that’s just just regular babies! Can you imagine space babies!” 

“Uh, space babies?” a new voice called out from Lance’s tyrade. 

Lance whipped around so fast he had to steady himself again. The door on Lance’s and Pidge’s spacecraft was open and three people stood inside the ship with various degrees of confusion on their faces. It was Hunk, Keith, and Shiro standing there but Lance only zeroed on one person. 

“YOU!” Lance signal out his victim from the group. 

Keith jumped at Lance accusing voice while Shiro and Hunk stepped away. 

“Me?” Keith questioned, pointing to himself. 

“Yeah, you!” Lance affirmed taking harsh steps towards his former leader and teammate. 

“I know what you were doing. You were trying to make it seem like I didn’t want to come,” he started off. “Acting all noble like but secretly wishing I would just deny the opportunity to come here.” 

Keith stammer a bit from Lance’s accusation. “I wanted you come,” he squeaked out. “I just didn’t think you wanted to.” 

“Why ‘cause you think I’m too out of shape for space?” 

“No, of course not, Lance,” Keith instantly argued back. He quickly looked Lance into the other’s eyes but broke away just as fast. “I just thought you were done dealing with all this space stuff. You know, just enjoying life with your family and stuff. I didn’t want to ruin that.” 

Keith was fidgeting now. He had a hand rubbing the back of his neck and his cheeks were glowing red from shame. The awkward young man was trying to look at anything but Lance, but his eyes would betray him and flicker over every so often. 

Lance also felt shame rising in his cheeks. Now that Lance was thinking about it. It made sense. Keith was always the type to take on the burden by himself before intruding onto someone else’s potential happy life. It was just Keith’s selfish, altruistic nature to do so. 

“Oh, I’m sorry, man. I didn’t mean to snap at you like that. It just hurts, you know,” Lance started apologizing to his friend. “I mean, i’m glad you asked help from me. But then I find out that you planned this in almost a month in advance, and it took you forever to asks.” Lance shrugged, resisting the urge to fidget like Keith. “You know…” 

“Yeah. No, I get it. I’m sorry, too. I should of just come out and asked you sooner.” Keith gave out that smile. That small quirk of the lips that shot adrenaline straight into Lance viens. 

“Well hey, I’m here now. Aren’t I? So no harm no foul, right, buddy.” Lance tried to keep the nerves out of his voice and give Keith a quick, completely normal, pat on the shoulder. Which in Lance’s view, felt really stiff. Luckily it seemed to work on Keith just fine. 

“Yeah, glad to have you back on the team.” Keith’s smile widen to something less delicate and more Keith like. He returned the pat but Lance felt hyper aware of Keith’s actions, sensing the fingers on his arm lasting a little bit longer then they should have felt. 

Lance couldn’t help but to mirror Keith’s expression but quickly looked away to avoid his heart leaping out of his throat. That’s when Lance caught Hunk just figured out the meaning of life. 

Lance mood instantly soured. “What!?” he snapped to his long time friend. 

Hunk squished his cheeks harder between his palms. “I understand everything,” the former yellow paladin whispered out. 

The flush from Lance’s cheeks returned with vigor. Throwing out the remains of whatever good mood he was left in. 

“What thing!? There isn’t anything going on!?” Lance screeched out, his voice regressing back to it uneven, high tone puberty stage. 

“What’s going on? I don’t see it. Hunk tell me what I’m supposed to be seeing.” Pidge leaned themselves close to Hunk’s large frame examining at the two friends like a piece of complex coding. 

Lance fumed out, ears turning just as red as his face. “There is nothing going on! Just two dudes hanging out and clearing up some air!” he hissed back to his long time, and sometimes nosy, friend since the their Garrison’s days. Nevermind, Hunk has always been a nosy little shit. 

“Oh,” Hunk started off slowly. “There is definitely going on with you ‘dudes hanging out’,” he threw back the words with as much pretentious that could only be done by Hunk. 

“I don’t get it,” Keith interjected between Lance’s and Hunk’s stare down. “Lance, what is he talking about?” 

Great, why did Keith always had to default to Lance when he was around? It only strengthen whatever weird convoluted idea Hunk got in his head. 

“Hell if I know,” was Lance only responses. Which was accurate considering Lance did have no clue what Hunk was on about, but it didn’t stop Lance’s instincts from ringing out alarm bells. 

“Alright, alright. That’s enough antagonizing for one day.” Shiro broke the tension and anticipation from the group like the true space leader he always been. “Keith, why don’t you show Lance where he’s staying at?” 

Forget it, Shiro was just a bad as Hunk when he wanted to be. 

Unfortunately, Lance was caught between a hard place and oblivious. Whatever underlying tone Shiro was using went completely over Keith’s head. 

“Sure thing,” Keith agreed. “Come on Lance, I’ll show you where you’re staying at.” Keith grabbed the bag Lance had and quickly moved out of the shuttle into the actual docking station. Leaving Lance no chance but to follow.So he gave one harsh look to Hunk and headed out. 

Lance caught his breath when he saw the full glory of the inner working of the Atlas. No matter how many times he’s been aboard, the flood of amazement and euphoria never got old. The Atlas might as well be a museum of all the different kinds of shuttles and carrier crafts that was spread out across the universes. People of all different shape, sizes, color, and compounds walked all over from one side to the other. Different professions working together on different projects all in the interior of one vessel. 

“Man, I always feel like I step into a different reality every time I come here,” Lance whisper out while he and Keith made the way to main hallway. 

“Yeah, it definitely beats the dim lighting of the Garla cruisers,” Keith answered back. 

The two shared a short laugh as they continues the way through Atlas. The exchange stories of recent events and the status of people they both new. They took detour after detour to different parts of the Atlas to see old faces and new ones. Eventually they made their way to the dorms of the ship where floors and different sections were put aside for all different kind of species living aboard. 

“Alright here we are, your room,” Keith announces stepping in front of a door that look almost identical to all the others. 

“Huh, I notice it’s not the same room I would usually stay,” Lance commented before he open the door to his temporary sleeping quarter. Which turned out to be more that just a place for sleeping. 

The room was spacious and reminded Lance more of a studio apartment than a regular dorm. It had a modest bed on one side of the room, a dresser with vanity, a sizable desk, and what appeared to be a closet. The other side was divided into a small kitchenette with a table to fit three comfortable and a door was ajar leading into the bathroom. There was also a large window showing off the vastness and beauty of space from a floor to ceiling view. 

“Whoa,” was the only thing that Lance could utter out. 

Keith gave out a soft chuckle and moved past Lance into the room. “yeah , apparently Hunk was tired of all his guest sleeping in glorified dorms when ever he would host parties on the Atlas. So he got this entire floor to be redone and make it more homey,” Keith explained. 

“Huh, well, Hunk always had a refined palette,” Lance added, moving into the room after Keith. 

“Yeah, and check this out,” the other gestured Lance closer to the window and moved to the side where a small panel was located. Keith moved his fingers over the panel and the glittering deep was replaced with curtains drawing closed. 

Lance gasp in surprised and moved his fingers to touch the soft fabric but was instead met with stiff smoothness of glass. He gave a look to his companion and saw a smile and eyes full of mirth before Keith moved to change the setting. 

The whole lighting of the room changed. Instead of the artificial glow of man made lights, it changed to softer, orange glow. Sound slowly filter the room, filling in with a soft murmur that sounded so familiar on Lance’s ears. When the curtains opened so did Lance eyes. Instead of the deep inky color of space with white glitter floating across, Lance was met with a familiar sight. I was a field of Juniberries blossoming in the wind, but the hills and blue sky wasn’t that of Altea, no, it was Lance home. 

“There are couple of other setting in here, too, but this is the latest one Hunk added in,” Keith explained moving next to Lance. 

Lance stood still save for his eyes flicking on the artificial landscape in front of him. “This is- I don’t know what to say,” he settle on whispering. 

“It’s nothing. I mean, it’s not like I did anything. Hunk and Pidge were the ones who did all the work. You know, so that the guest that come over wouldn’t be as homesick,” Keith smiled. 

Lance met Keith’s smile with his own, feeling the soft noise of birds chirping and grass rustling sooth him. “Thanks, Keith. For showing me this.” 

In the back of his mind, Lance notice how well Keith’s eyes shone in this kind of lighting. The thought didn’t stay long, though, and was replaced with the peaceful feeling of watching the Juniberries fields ahead. 

A buzzing is what knocked down the peaceful moment. It was coming from Keith as he quickly pulled out his responder and gave Lance a quick apology for the interrupting. “sorry , I have to take this.” 

Lance followed Keith to the other side of the room, concerned for his friend. “Is it the Blade,” he asked tentatively. 

“No, it’s just Griffin.” 

Whoa, wait. Griffin? As in Garrison’s Griffin? James Griffin? 

His unspoken questions were answered when Keith answered the call. James Griffin’s face appeared above the responder and was in full fighter pilot gear. 

“Keith!” the angry voice of Griffin sounded out. “This overgrown fur ball just flew in an asteroid field!” 

Another face popped out of the device, this time of a older Galra with large bat ears and short fur. And boy was he angry. 

“That’s because I told you not to follow him! And what do you do? You follow him like stupid idiot!” The Galra shouted over. 

“Okay, wait, stop. I need you guys to back up a bit. What’s going on and who’s following who?” 

Lance was close enough to see the screen and saw Griffin was struggling a bit with whatever he was flying through. 

“Devo got outside. Naturally this caused concerns from MFE pilots. So I told them this was a frequent occurrence we face and poses no danger. All we had to do was continue on our way and Devo will follow,” the Galra explained. 

“Who Devo?” Lance whispered. 

“Giant, quintessence-eating wolf-lizard thing,” Keith supplied. 

“Wait, quintessence-eating !?” 

“Exactly!” Griffin was the one to confirmed. “It can literally eat quintessence and it’s loose.” Griffin seemed to pulled a hard turn on his screen. “And fast.” 

“And I keep telling you, Devo is an intelligent creature!” the Galra shot out again. 

Another face popped up on a screen, this time of a blonde Lance recognized but had no idea what their name was. 

“I would just like to inform you the path the Devourer is taking is long, windy, and in the complete opposite direction of the Atlas,” the blonde announced. 

“Leifsdottir, can you tell me where this thing is heading to so I can cut it off.” 

Oh, right. Her name was Leifsdottir. 

“Negative, it’s movements are completely erratic.” 

Another face appeared, this time of a brunette. Geez, Lance was bad at names. 

“Wait, I’m confused,” she started. “Are we all supposed to be chasing the green giant, ‘cause you Galra guys are still en-route to Atlas.” 

“Commander Yvski, you’re the one who deals with the Devourer. What’s the call?” Keith took back the situation before there could be anymore interruptions. 

Instead of giving an answer, the Galra in question gave the most seething, quietest look Lance has ever seen, and hung up. 

“Please don’t tell me Devo and Devourer as the same thing,” Lance quickly asked. 

Keith only spared him a look before he was pushing buttons on his responder. Another Galra appeared, this one had those half butterfly looking ears. 

“Commander Birch speaking.” This one was also more calm and relaxed. 

“Commander Birch, the Devourer is currently heading farther and farther away from the Atlas. How do we it get it to come back.” Keith was always good at getting the point across. 

“Yeah, and don’t tell us to just ‘stop chasing’,” Griffin added grunting again. 

The Galra commander took a quick glance to the side. “Alright, rescind your latest measures.” 

Lance frowned, taking a look at Keith. 

“He said stop chasing it,” Keith clarified. 

Lance gave a hummed of acknowledgement and turned back the display screen, seeing Griffin’s red face. 

“You’re telling me we just let loose a giant, quintessence-eating monster to rampage all over the universe,” Griffin growled out. 

“Basically,” was all Commander Birch came up with. 

“Did you not hear what I just said!” the MFE pilot practically screeched out. 

“Commander Birch why should we just let the Devourer go, his ability is what we need to take down that Galra eating monster,” Keith also seethed out. Looks like he was getting impatience, too. 

“Wait hold up,” Lance quickly intervened, “this Devo-Devourer-whatever-thing is moving farther and farther away because Griffin’s chasing it, right?” 

“Yes, because it looks like I’m the only concerned for the universe’s safety,” Griffin pointed out. 

“Hey, we’re all helping, too!” the brunette complained. 

“Deadly: absolutely. Dangerous: no,” Commander Birch counter. 

“And this thing is tamed, right?” Lance continued on.. 

This time is was Commander Birch who answer. “A bit insulting, but yes.” 

“So just like cat, if you leave it alone outside, it’ll come back to you.” 

“Don’t know what a cat is, but exactly.” 

“Which is why you want the MFE pilots to just leave it alone.” 

“Yup.” 

“That only works if the stupid cat’s knows where it's at and where its going,” Griffin argued back. 

“Upon further inspection, we’ve been traversing through the same general area now.” Leifsdottir part of the screen quickly moved out to show a map of the asteroid field and the path the MFEs had taken. 

And sure enough, it was is the same general area. 

“Alright, that settles it. Griffin, you and your team need to call off the chase and head back to Atlas,” Lance announced with a flourish of his hands. 

“Wait, wha-who is this?” Griffin asked, trying to divide his attention from the screen and what he was flying through. 

Lance stood silent. “He’s joking, right.” 

“You heard the man,” Keith went over, giving Lance a smirk. “Call off your team, and rendezvous back to base.” 

“Speaking of rendezvous, Just to let you know we’ll be arriving to the Atlas in about 15 doboshes,” Commander Birch inform, completely ignoring Griffin’s sputters. 

“Copy that.” 

The Garla commander went offline, and before the annoying MFE pilot could question Keith further; Keith turned off his responder, too. 

The smug look remain on Keith’s face and it didn’t go unnoticed by the other occupant. 

“So ignoring the whole ‘who’s this’ thing. You seem oddly relaxed for having a giant quintessence-eating monster loose.” Lance lifted a brow, eyeing his friend closely. 

“What? You’re the one who gave the okay.” 

“Yeah, after hearing what that other commander, Lowenski or whatever his name is, called it like a dog and that other commander did, too.” 

“Which is why you’re my right hand man in this,” the other quickly added. “And Griffin may have been on my back a lot these past couple of weeks.” 

Lance dismissed the comment. “Whatever, still doesn’t sound like a safe idea from an outsider’s point of view.” 

Keith gave a so-so gesture with his hands. “Well, I might of actually seen what Devo was capable of a couple of times.” 

“Alright, so I guess we’re back at calling it Devo. So is it really a giant misunderstood monster?” Lance asked giving a skeptical look to Keith. 

“Oh, yeah,” Keith confirmed. “It’s definitely harmless. They actually feed it corrupted Galra crystals and take it to help heal Balmera’s.” 

“What!? Keith were did you find these people!?” 

The smirk had calmed down to a smile as Keith explained. “They call themselves the Guards of Lystii, or at least they used to. Apparently Haggar had this weird soul eating monster she couldn’t control so she just dumped it on an outpost somewhere.” 

“Why would Haggar just leave it somewhere? How did we never fight a robeast like that?” Lance questioned. Clearly anything quintessence-like was right up Haggar’s alley. 

“Because,” Keith shrugged. “ Haggar wasn’t learning anything from it. **It** was learning from Haggar.” 

Realization dawn on Lance. If Devo was a just your run of the mill monster it wouldn’t be much of a hassle. Just stick it in the gladiator ring and eventually someone will come along and kill it. But if it was learning, and somehow was able to copy Haggar quintessence manipulating ability, then you got a giant monster that could drain the life out of anything. 

“And Haggar didn’t,” Lance waved, “you know, kill it?” 

“It can’t die.” 

Lance eyes widened at the implications. 

“If you tried to encase it and try to bury it in a dead planet it’ll eventually escape.,” Keith continued. “If you tossed it into a black hole it’ll teleport away. If you try to eviscerate the whole body at once, a portion of it would just teleport away and regrow. If you just remove certain organs or limbs then they would just grow back. If you try to drain it of blood, it’ll stop flowing and start going back in. If you separate the head from its body it’ll just collide back like a meteor no matter how far away the two pieces are. If you just destroy the head and not the body, the head will regrow and you still get the same creature you started.” 

“Holy fuck,” Lance whispered. “Haggar did all that and it’s on our side?” 

Keith nodded his head in confirmation. “And they have the records to prove it, too. I’ve never seen them all the way through but I’ve seen a picture or two, and...” Keith had to pause. 

“It’s just… horrible.” 

Lance stood quiet giving Keith however much time he need. 

“I mean! Just looking at it make you think it’s just an over-sized dog-lizard! And the stuff it went through isn’t just being cut up. They killed him, Lance!” Keith frantically yelled. “They just keep killing him. And he couldn’t stay dead. Even if he wanted to.” 

Long arms enveloped Keith, bring him closer to Lance. He wasn’t crying, but Lance could feel Keith shaking. 

Eventually Keith returned the embraced and rested his forehead on Lance’s shoulder. They weren’t quite fully in an embrace, with Keith mostly just holding on to the sides of Lance’s jacket, but this might as well be with how privy Keith was with personal space. 

“Okay,” Lance signal after a while, slowly maneuvering Keith until the two were facing each other. Lance also made sure keep the contact, after all Keith just _looked_ like he was standoffish. “How about we move on,” he whisper quietly looking for any discomfort from the other man. 

When Keith gave a small nod, Lance took it as his cue. “The two Galra commander we were talking to. They don’t act like the typical Galra I know. What’s their deal?” 

This time Keith let out a puff of a smile. 

“So the Guards of Lystii. Guess what kind of Galra usually ended up there.” Keith nodded, still keep the close space. 

Lance gave a laugh in return. “You got me, I’ve only seen super-serious kind or the Nazi kind.” 

Keith grin widen. “A large chunk of them were conspiracy theories.” 

“What? No way,” Lance denied, unconsciously letting go of his hold. 

Keith mimic the action but grin remained plaster on his face. 

“I’m serious! You should meet the other two commanders, Jurci and Rejul. Jurci is obsessed with anything going with Haggar and is bizarrely right on half her theories,” he went on. 

Lance gave a snort of disbelief, “No way, nothing is bad as you and your conspiracy shack.” 

“Hey, that was that shack is what got us here in the first place. Beside, Jurci doesn’t have a room full of conspiracies. She has an entire database full of them, and they’re all three dimensional projections.” 

“Wow, really?” 

“Yeah, really. Then Rejul always has these camera floating around him. Everyone knows he’s recording but no one actually know where he keeps all the files or how long they’re on.” 

“So if I see him I got to keep my good side towards him, got it. What about the other two? Ski-man and the one with the tree name?” 

“They’re Yvski and Birch. Birch is actually pretty laid back, he doesn't seem to get bother by a lot of stuff. Complete opposite of Yvski. I’ve only really see him angry or yelling at something. Most of the time Yvski is complaining how Jurci is reading way to much into things.” 

The two were laughing now, unable to keep their mirth to themselves. 

“Are you serious? How did they all meet and stuff?” 

“Magical wolf-lizard,” Keith answered honestly. 

“Magical wolf-lizard? You mean Devo?” Lance tried to clarify. 

This time Keith only shrugged. “I haven’t been able to figure that out yet. I just know that they say it’s all Devo’s fault.” 

“Huh, weird.” 

“Like all other Galra, they’re pretty tight lipped. But after the Blade found them when we were trying to unify the Galra, they streamlined the entire process.” “You mean they kept tabs on everyone?” “Yup, and not just the Galra and their claimed territory but also who was fighting who, which ones were on the verge of collapsing, who was merging with other groups, and how likely they are from forming alliances.” 

“You said they used to be the Guards of Lystii. What do they do now?” 

“Oh, they’re a multi-media production company now. Ever heard of the ‘Super Secret Dice Club Chronicles’?” 

Lance gasped. “No way, I love that series! ‘Parody’ is my favorite campaign so far, probably because it’s our earth D and D they’re using. I didn’t know it was a Galra owned.” 

“That’s them. So, yeah. They definitely aren’t your typical run of the mill soldiers. I think you would like them the most.” 

“Oh my god, yes! Now I have to absolutely meet them. Come on! We got what? Ten minutes before they get here? That’s more than enough time to get to docks.” 

Lance quickly move to the door, signaling Keith to follow. The two laughed as they made their way back to the docks. Sharing their favorite series and productions on their new found interest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter ended up super long and I have no idea how to shorten it. It's also my warning that there are OCs involved and some do share a large role in the story line. I'm ones of those people that doesn't like reading fanfic with major OC interactions but can't write one with out adding a bunch in. If you also encounter this problem, feel free to drop off some tips or stuff.
> 
> Also, I have no idea what's Griffin's deal is. He's just there like he is in canon. Nothing annoys me more than having some random ass side character have shared history with a major one AND have their path cross years later but never touch on it other than having weird tension where they're never on the same shot but are in the same scene.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So Keith sucks at sharing key details.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finished this around 2 am so there's going to be mistakes here.  
> Edited 1/25/2020 just deleted the italicized stuff

Keith and Lance made it down to the hangar to see a different ship docking inside. The ship was compact, slim, and large enough to hold something the size of the Green or Red Lions, albeit with a low roof. It was an oil slick black that could easily blend in the background of space if it weren’t for the blue accents it had painted and illuminated on the body. The hatch door took up the entire backside of the ship making it vulnerable if it were to open during an attack, but it also had other doors and entryways on the side of the ship as well. One of those smaller doors opened, letting out the occupants of the ship. 

The first thing Lance notice, other than the occupants being Galra, was instead of the usual purple details common in most kinds of Galra uniforms, blade or empire, these Galra wore blue accent clothing. The second was that their clothing were a bit more tailored to the person wearing the uniform, sort of like Lance’s uniform after he had returned to earth, and a regular cadet ensemble just couldn’t cut it for him or his teammates. The last thing Lance notice was the dark green bands that wrapped around the upper left arm of the uniform. 

“Commanders, how was your trip to the Atlas?” Keith brought up once the duo was close enough to the Galra that had arrived. 

Lance easily recognized the angry scowl of Commander Yvski, who grunted waved a dismissive hand from his crossed arms. “Horrible, Devo got outside and our escorts completely ignored our advice.” 

A female Galra who seem to be around the same age as Yvski gave out a hearty laughter, “Hah, you’ll have to excuse Knives, he’s just tried from the long trip.” 

“Don’t call me that,” Yvski quickly scowled. 

“So long those pilots just leave Devo alone and just come here, we’ll be just fine,” another Galra recognized as Commander Birch stated. 

“Well, I’m hungry,” stated a Galra with little floating drones floating around him. 

Lance instantly began to remember the people Keith describe for him. If the older Galra had drones floating around him then he must be Commander Rejul, while the older, female Galra was Commander Jurci. 

Jurci reached into the pants of her uniform, pulling out a sleek object from her pocket and giving it a shake to pop open a side panel that extended out. 

“This just in, we have now arrived aboard the Atlas and Rejul is hungry and is craving for some substance right now.” The woman pointed the device at Rejul direction before panning over to Yvski. “Although Knives is probably in a mood to a good nap and down time.” 

Immediately Yvski shoved the device away, “Get that out of my face!” 

Jurci only gave another laugh before turning to the younger Galra behind her, “But what about the rest of the crew?” she asked, making the device that was probably a camera zoom in and out, earning a couple of smiles. 

“And what about Devo?” this time she turned to the exit of the hangar. “Will he be back for lunch time? Or will he just hang out in space? Find out next time on: JURCI AND FRIENDS.” Another laugh left Jurci lips before she shut the camera and pocketed it again. 

“Why can’t your logs be normal logs like everyone else’s?” Yvski huffed. 

“I like Jurci’s logs,” one of the unnamed Galra offered. 

“Of course, you like her logs, your part of the social media department, Jeg.” 

“Wait so you guys really are the people behind ‘Super-Secret Dice Club’?” Lance asked almost jumping with joy until he saw the look on Yvski’s face. 

“Never. Ever. Say those words out loud, again,” he fumed then turned and walk back to the ship he came on. 

Birch gave out a sigh before following the other commander into the ship, leaving everyone outside and a very confused Lance. 

“Don’t take it personally, Lance. He just really hates it when people bring up the Dice Club,” Rejul offered. “The name ‘Super-Secret Dice Club’ was supposed to be a joke but it ended up sticking especially with the second generation,” he smiled. 

“Oh my god, you know my name,” Lance quietly whispered to himself. 

Keith nudged him, “Lance you were a paladin of Voltron.” 

“Shut up Keith, it’s not the same. These are the people who make superstars!” the former paladin of Voltron, only one of two paladins to pilot two different lions, explained. 

“You sure about that, Loverboy Lance?” Jurci smiled. She tapped a device strapped to her wrist that brought up an image. “Don’t you remember the Voltron Show?” 

In front of her she showed a picture of one of the opening acts of the Voltron show. 

Lance gasped. “You know the Voltron show!?” 

“Know it? I hosted an entire forum dedicated to it,” she smirked. 

“Really? How’d you like it? Be honest, was I your favorite?” 

The smile on Jurci’s face widen as her yellow eyes peered down at Lance. “To be honest, the forum I hosted was entirely dedicated to finding truth from fiction and how the interpersonal relationships of the paladins affected each other that resulted in the paladins not being all present, and as to why only two of the paladins don’t match their lions,” she declared before swiping the image and showing a goddamn conspiracy board. 

On the side lines, Lance notice a couple of the Galra snickering to each other, and he could help but feel like he opened a can of worms. 

“See in the Voltron Show, only three of the five paladins match with their respective lions and out of all them only one of them had their named change for the show as well. This meant during the time between Voltron reforming the first time in 10,000 decaphebes and the introduction of the show, something happened. People first thought might be that Voltron had a falling out with the original red paladin, but then why keep the leader the same? Everyone know that the Red lion is a literal metaphor for the righthand man, or second in command, and therefore one of the most trusted people in the perspective of the leader. And the characterization for ‘Keith’ doesn’t match up to the theory of there being some kind of dispute or else the show would have utilized that in order to create drama that would have captivated audience in order to further their goal of building a resistance against Zarkon’s Empire. Trust me, nothing captivates an audience more than a story of a hero who has to fight a war on the outside _and_ the inside.” 

It suddenly occurred to Lance for the first time in his life that there was a legitimate reason why some people dislike stardom. Sure, Coran bit of gone a little coo-coos with a brain worm but he always kept the personal lives of the paladins private. 

“Okay,” Lance started out slowly, unsure how he felt about the whole situation now. “What did you think happened?” Again, out of the corner of his eye, Lance notice some of the Galras keeping in their laughter while others shook their heads. 

“I don’t think, I know.” 

Okay, this is getting a little creepy for Lance, but if he thought about it, it’s kind of weird this is only happening to him now and not when he was in the show business. 

“Something happened to Shiro that forced him off the leader role, something on the supernatural level. Which caused his righthand man, Keith, to take up the role. But if Keith became the leader then he needed someone to keep him in line without making him feel trapped. Someone like a formal rival, perhaps? Afterall, the right arm of Voltron is responsible for dealing the final blow, a big responsibility. That leave an opening for a new paladin to come in and fill and take on a less active role giving them time to develop and grow.” 

She was right. 

Jurci hit it on the nail the first time and there was no pulling it back out. 

“How did you get all that from a show?” 

“I’m a conspiracy theorist, and my theories are either justifiable and wrong or obscure and right,” Jurci shrugged. “And believe it or not, there’s only so much information you can dig from a 10,000 decaphebe old empire.” 

“That’s enough, Jurci, you don’t want to scare him too much,” Rejul laughed. “Jurci and I were actually in charge of gathering information and interpreting it to keep our base safe,” Rejul explained. 

“Yeah, Lance, these are the guys who made it a lot easier for the Blade to find all the fractions of the old Galra Empire,” Keith added. “Since my mom and Kolivan had to rebuild the Blade of Marmora from scratch, finding these guys was the best thing that happened.” 

“Wait, if you guys helped the Marmorites, how come you didn’t join them?” Lance asked, after all these Galra wore a completely different uniform from any Galra organization he’d seen. 

“Simple because of our background,” Jurci answered. “The Blade of Marmora are all about ‘knowledge or death’ while the former Galra empire is ‘victory or death’.” 

“The Gaurds of Lystii don’t share those extreme values like the rest of our kind does,” Rejul continued. “In fact, the Guards of Lystii is just a front to show that the Galra on Dea-on Station don’t want to be involved in the whole power vacuum that was going on at the time.” 

“And it also helps that Dea-on Station is known as the place where only the weakest of Galra go to die.” 

The other Galra shuffled in their spot behind their superiors, a heavy air settling over them. 

“Yes, it true that we used to get a lot of people like Jurci, who like to dig in place that many would even touch, but it also get Galra like myself, a bystander who had nothing to do with the coup of my ship’s commander,” Rejul continued explaining. 

“Then there’s Galra who no longer serve a purpose to their current superiors and are ship to Dea-on to keep their reputation intact, and lastly, soldiers thought to have absolutely no value to the Empire itself.” 

One of subordinates stepped out of the group, looking at Lance with a steely gaze. “To be perfectly clear, there’s some of us who would much rather go back to when Zarkon ruled than work with other Galra.” 

Another one stepped up. “Our business is just a way for us to generate revenue to fix the real problem.” 

“Real problem?” Lance questioned. 

One of the Galra gave a bitter smile, “We live in a post-war era now. It’s something us Galra didn’t even knew existed. We’ve been told all our lives that the best way to live was to die victorious in battle for the glory of the empire. Then we get told there’s no way for us to serve our nation and are sent off to die on a remote station to feed a beast that’s only brought out to clear out the prison cells.” 

Lance can feel a cold sweat being to break out, “What do you mean ‘feed’?” 

“Galra aren’t sent to Dea-on Station to _watch_ the Devourer, they’re sent to be _fed to_ the Devourer.” 

“It eats people!? It eats people and we let it loose outside in the middle of space!?” Lance quickly grabbed Keith’s arm shaking him lightly. “Keith, why didn’t you tell me this!? I thought it just ate quintessence not actual people!?” 

The Galras let out a laughter at Lance frantic waving. 

“Of course, Devo doesn’t eat people left and right anymore. In fact, he doesn’t eat a living thing unless it’s to protect us.” Jurci kept laughing, bending forward by the force of her mirth. “If that was true then we’d have two Galra hunting monsters to deal with.” 

“See, Lance, I told you, Devo is completely harmless,” Keith smiled as well as he watched Lance give out a sigh of relief. 

“Geez, will it kill you to give me a better heads up?” 

“Eh, I know you’ll live.” 

Rejul cleared his throat bring back the attention to himself, “Speaking of Devo, it looks like he just arrived.” 

Everyone turned their gazes to the opening of the hangar, watching silently. 

Lance himself stared to squint at the black void ahead of him. After a couple moments of silence, Lance was about to question what it was they were looking for when he heard it. A howl. Another howl echo and flash of white followed by green blur past by the length of the entry way. 

“Attention, crewmembers, please clear the center entry way for an emergency landing. Again, please clear the center entry way for emergency landing,” the intercom system announced. 

Crewmember hurriedly began shuffling around at a faster pace, moving ships and large crates as far away from the middle of the station. 

Lance, Keith, and the Galra weren’t exactly in the middle but they were just off to the side by just a bit. 

“Uh, shouldn’t you guys move?” Lance asked pointed to the large ship that blocked their path towards the other, safer, side of the hangar. 

“We’ll be fine,” Jurci waved off. “Probably. Maybe… yeah, we’ll be fine.” 

Another howl reverberated through the interior of station and a white dot was seen flying from the top of the entrance flow by the green blur. The white dot centered itself to the middle of the opening and began to get bigger and bigger until Lance finally recognized the dot. One of the MFE’s. 

The MFE was going full throttle and, by its current trajectory, directly into the hangar followed by a giant green creature right behind the small ship. 

“Huh, nice approach, but I don’t think it’s gonna work,” commented one of the younger Galra. 

“Oh, no, definitely not,” confirmed another. 

The MFE continued its path, getting closer and closer. 

“Okay, that ship is getting a little too close, too fast,” Lance worriedly noted. 

Keith moved around, as if he was trying get a better view of seeing the small head on, “What are they doing?” 

The small fighter ship nearly made it to the entry before pulling up sharply, narrowly missing the entrance. And so did the giant green beast that followed. 

“Ah, yes. The classic last pull up. Unfortunately, we’ve used that move way too many times on Devo.” 

“Wait, are you saying that giant green blob is Devo!?” Lance nearly shrieked when he heard one of the Galra talking. 

“Why do you think we have this huge cargo ship for?” said the Galra. 

Lance continued to stare at the Galra, absolutely stunned by the supposed size of the mystery monster that he just caught a glimpse of. He turned to Keith for a silent confirmation. 

“He’s about the size of the Red Lion but with shorter legs.” 

Why does Keith always forget to mention the most important detail. 

The MFE appeared again followed by the green blob that was now Devo, heading to the hangar entrance again. 

“Oh, do you think their gonna do it this time?” asked one of the Galra. 

“If they want Devo inside, then yes.” 

“Do we think we should of told them that Devo is never actually going to bite at them?” 

“Nah, they didn’t listen before, so why should we.” 

“Do what?” Lance asked. 

The Galra only shrugged giving Lance no answer. 

“Keith?” Lance turned his friend again, but Keith only shrugged, too. 

The MFE started to close in on round two and Lance waited for it to pull the same stunt last time. 

But the MFE didn’t pull up. 

Instead it crossed the threshold at full speed, revving itself in full reverse in an effort to slow down. It succeeded but then it touched the ground a little too early and jolted, throwing off balance the entire craft. 

Everything was in slow-motion to Lance. The MFE entering the hanger, thrusting going from full forward to full reverse, the little touch down that was so small but made the whole thing so much more dangerous. And the dark green and bright blue light that encompassed the whole ship. 

Lance closed his eyes and moved his arm to wait for the debris and flames that would burst towards him. The thunks echoed through the ground to his feet and the wind blew past him and the final crash drifted in, but it all sounded wrong. 

A trill echoed through the hangar, reminding Lance of a bird or a lizard. When he open eyes, Lance first notice how strangely close Keith was, and that Lance hand was gripping tightly to Keith’s wrist. Keith was also looking at him with pink cheeks. Lance quickly let go, feeling his own cheeks flare up, and moved his attention behind himself where that crash was heard. 

There at the back of the station upside-down against the wall was an enormous green… thing. 

The large massive tail almost covered the whole monster, if it weren’t for the short hind legs sticking out into the air it would have been hard to tell top from bottom. Another trill sounded off, followed by a series of small clicks and the thick tail moves to better revel a huge head and the MFE in it long arms, one green like the rest of the beast while the other was cover in blue flames that didn’t burn or damage the craft. 

The creature let go of the MFE, letting it flip right side up before righting itself up. It gave a shake and the blue flaming arm disappeared leaving a stump in its wake. The beast was huge, about the size of the Red or Green Lions body wise but had short hind legs with feet landing underneath the body. The head was wolf like with the long snout and pointed ears but has scales running up from the tip of the noes to the brows. The arms, or arm now, was long and bent to accommodate its long body and short legs. The mane was blue toned and ran from the top of the beast’s head all the way down the spine throughout the entire thick tail that must have made half of its body length before ending in a final tuff of hair at the end. Its most distinctive feature were its eyes, or its eye per say. One eye was open showing a yellow sclera with a brown iris while the other was closed and had a huge scar running from the top of the eyebrow to where its cheekbone was at. 

In other words, Devo was a huge wolf-lizard with only one arm and one eye. 

“What the FUCK!” 

The top of the MFE opened, letting out its pilot who was cursing out expletives. The pilot jumped out of the ship ripping off and threw the helmet to the ground, revealing the short brown hair of James Griffin. 

“I won’t lie, I part of me knew it was going be him.” 

Lance almost jumped out of his own skin from the voice that behind him. When he turned around, it was Birch. “Holy- you almost scared me half to death,” Lance complained. 

Birch only gave Lance a hummed of acknowledgement before Rejul called his attention. 

“And Yvski?” the other Galra commander asked. 

“Sleeping, or at least that what he told me when we heard the crash,” Birch answered as he started walking to the giant beast and the enrage MFE pilot. 

The other followed and Jurci signaled to her crew to move ahead to Devo while the commanders and two former paladins headed towards Griffin. 

Back at the entrance, the remaining MFE pilots of Griffins team arrived. 

Griffin was being checked out by one of the medics, asking the pilots questions and probing around for pain. When the Galra where in Griffin’s line of sight, he instantly narrowed his eyes at them. 

“What the h-!” 

Jurci cut off the young pilots with a hand, “Let me guess, you were on your way back and you notice Devo following really close behind you?” 

“It almost took out my wing,” Griffin hissed out. 

“No, he didn’t,” Jurci defended. “You just freaked out because a giant space beast was wonder why you weren’t chasing it anymore and took off. Prompting said beast to chase you in a game of chase. Which, might I add, is exactly what _you_ did when we told you not to chase Devo.” 

“What did you expect me to do? It has the ability to eat quintessence!” 

“How about following our advice due to the fact that we are the highest-ranking officers in our domain and have decaphobes worth of experience with not only Devo himself, but with transporting him to various locations throughout the universe,” answered Rejul. 

“We did specifically ask Captain Shirogane for escorts that can follow basic and simply instructions no matter how convoluted our orders sound,” Birch added. 

“You did and I apology for the defiance of my subordinates,” Shiro’s voice rang out. 

Over by the side, Hunk, Pidge, Veronica, and Iverson stood behind the captain of the Atlas. 

Griffin straighten out, calling to attention at the present of Captain Shirogane. 

“Captain,” Birch approached. “Though I understand any punishment you might give to all of the pilots, I would like you know that the other three were following order of their leader,” the tallest of the three Galra commanders pointed out with the other three MFE pilots made their way to Griffin. 

Shiro nodded, “I’ll take that into consideration.” Shiro then turned to Iverson handing over the MFE pilot to the older Garrison officer who then took the MFE pilots with him and left. 

“Again, I apologized for Griffin’s and his team’s actions. You warned us of nature of Devo and the necessity of having escorts that followed your orders even with a bit obscurity.” Shiro apologized again and gave a bow as well. 

“It’s not your fault,” Jurci quickly amended. “The Voltron Coalition doesn’t fully trust us.” Jurci moved her line of sight to Devo, who was currently lying down with two of the Galra climbing on top of the enormous beast. “Doesn’t help he’s called the Devourer.” 

“You know, I was kind of hoping he would be more scalier,” Pidge interjected, watching the giant creature open its maw and let one of the Galra poke around inside. 

“Yeah, everyone expects that too,” Rejul nodded. 

Four of the Galra spilt off from the group jogging back to the ship they came in. 

And wow, Lance just notice there were only eight of them, twelve if you counted the commanders. 

“May I ask a question?” Hunk piped in, looking at the commanders and the beast. 

“You may ask,” Birch responded. 

“Is he just going to suck the quintessence out the Galra hunting monster or, you know, eat it?” 

The three officials looked at each asking the other for the answer. 

“I think he just going to eat it,” Rejul led out for his comrades. 

“I think that plan. Right?” Birch shrugged. 

Jurci also let out a shrug of her own before turned over to where the beast in question was sitting. “Devo!” she shouted. “Are you just going to eat the Galra hunting monster or are you suck it?” 

The ears of the beast perked up, recognizing Jurci’s question. 

“Is it even smart enough to answer back?” Pidge whispered quietly. 

Devo turned their head to show the group the profile of its face. It then opened its mouth showing off white pearly teeth and a forked, lilac colored tongue and clicked its teeth twice and returned to its previous position. 

“Oh shit, it can,” Pidge whispered again. 

Jurci gave a decisive nodded, “He’s going to eat it.” 

“I thought so. It’s too dangerous to have to transport a monster like that,” Birch agreed. 

Rejul raised a brow at Shiro’s lack of disbelief when only nodded his head and agreed with whatever answer Jurci and Birch came to. 

“I must admit Captain Shirogane, you seem to take our answer far more readily than what I expected.” 

Shiro let out a light chuckle, “Please call me Shiro. And yes, I see why you would say that but remember my mind was in the body of the Black Lion and was transfer over to the clone body you see now.” 

Jurci gave Birch a punch to the shoulder. “I told you he died.” 

Again, Shiro let out a chuckle watching the lively interaction of the commanders. 

“Yes, I can see that, but please do not mention this to Yvski or else he might let that Galra hunting monster get you,” Brich pleaded while rubbing at the spot Jurci punched. 

“Speaking of your fellow commander, where is he?” Shiro asked looking around but only saw the four Galra returning with a large crate that must have been at least twice their height 

“Right there,” Jurci pointed out a fifth Galra lagging behind by a few distances. 

“Knives!” she called out and the Galra turned around with his angry scowl that always seem to be present. 

Commander Yvski detoured from his path and started heading to the other commanders. 

“Captain Shirogane of the IGF-Atlas, it’s nice to finally nice to meet you,” he greeted once he was close enough. 

“Please, call me Shiro,” the captain of the Atlas stated once more. “I hope you’re staying aboard in one of the rooms we have to offer.” 

Yvski shook his head, “No, thank you for the offer but, again, I have to decline.” 

“Don’t listen to him, Captain. Knives would absolute appreciate a room aboard,” Jurci interjected. 

“Yes,” Rejul piled on. “Rumors of your rooms already spread to our section of the universe.” 

Yvski frowned his companions disregard to his choice. “Yes, and I can also think for myself.” 

“Doesn’t matter,” Jurci waved off again. “It’s three against one, you’re overruled.” 

“No, it’s not,” Yvski complained. “Only you and Rejul said anything.” 

“No, she’s right,” Brich confirmed. “It’s three against one.” He held up three fingers to Yvski. 

Yvski stood silent, keeping his menacing gaze toward the taller Galra. “I don’t want one.” 

“Fine, I want one,” Birch countered. 

“I’d doubt they would have a bed big enough.” 

This time Birch turned to Hunk, “Chef Hunk, do you know if you have a bed big enough to fit two full grown Galra?” 

A light bulb went off in Hunk’s head, as it did for everyone else (except for Lance) and Hunk quickly caught on. “Of course, we have beds big enough to five full grown Galra. The beds are adjustable to each side and the lighting setting can be set to almost any setting imaginable. Our rooms are soundproof from either side and temperature can be set to your convince. Not to mention, you get a beautiful floor to window of space that can also change to a variety of other scenic views.” 

“The room service is awesome, too,” Pidge added. 

Yvski narrowed his eyes, turning back to the taller Galra. “This is a mission. We’re on a mission not a vacation.” 

Birch rolled his eyes, “The actual important part isn’t until the day after tomorrow and all we’re doing tomorrow is planning.” 

“And that doesn’t change the fact this is a mission.” 

Lance slowly leaned over towards Keith. There was obviously something going on between Birch and Yvski, he just didn’t know what. 

“Keith, what am I missing,” he whispered. 

Keith gave Lance a confused look. “Missing? Missing what?” 

Of course, Keith didn’t know what Lance was talking about, just his luck. 

“I mean what’s up about them,” Lance pointed to the two Galra currently arguing. 

“Uh, there arguing…?” 

Goddammit, Keith. Why did he have to be so dense? 

“No, I mean what are they,” he hissed out. 

Keith only seemed more confused, looking at Lance and the two commanders. 

“You know what never mind,” Lance finally settle turning back to the scene before him. 

“Alright, then I guess you’re sleeping alone then,” Birch shrugged and landed a kiss on Yvski’s forehead. 

“Bye.” 

OOOOHHHHHH~~~~~~~~!!!!!!!! 

THEY’RE A COUPLE!!! 

… 

Oh. 

Lance suddenly felt embarrassed. He could feel the heat rising in his cheeks even though the argument was over, and Hunk was leading Birch out of the hangar. He saw the other remaining commanders give Yvski a look before Yvski gave a growl of frustration and quickly followed after his partner. 

“Keith! Why didn’t you tell me they were a thing?!” Lance gave a jab to his friend as soon as he saw the two Galra exit the hangar. 

Keith flinched, rubbing his arm at the jab. “What? I didn’t know and why are you making such a big deal about it?” 

“Because, they’re a thing, Keith! You don’t watch when they’re a thing!” Lance cried out with his arms in the air. “Especially if they’re, you know.” 

“Hah, Kid, you’re hilarious!” Jurci laughed out. “I swear this never gets old!” 

“Don’t worry, no one ever think they’re an item, but explaining it gets tiring after the hundredth time,” Rejul added and quickly absconded waving a goodbye to Shiro and dragging Jurci to where the giant beast was eating Galra crystals. 

“I like his idea,” Pidge nodded. “Not that I don’t love you like a brother, Lance, but you need to wake up. And that giant wolf-lizard is eating corrupted Galra crystals.” Pidge followed the commanders and gave Lance a semi-sympathetic pat on their way. 

“What does she mean wake up? I’m already awake, I just care about giving people _privacy_ for their _private_ lives.” Lance crossed his arms and glared at the back at his friend’s retreating form. 

“Nah, their right. You’re making this a way bigger deal than it needs to be,” Veronica smiled, speaking up for the first time. “Besides, they make a cute couple.” 

“Well, excuse me,” Lance sneered to his sister. “I didn’t even know Galra did space marriage, let alone,” Lance trailed off making a vague motion with his hands. 

“Be gay?” Keith asked. 

“Yes! No! I mean- Look, they’re older, okay! They gotta be around my parents age and I just didn’t expect it okay,” Lance finally finished. 

Keith frowned again, although Lance might of say in the back of his own mind it looks more like a pout. “So, you didn’t expect them be gay?” 

In the background, Lance could hear Veronica laugh. 

“Wha-no-Why?? Argh!” Lance face-palmed trying his best to get his thoughts in order and not sound like some shallow douche. “You know what, yes. Yes, I admit it. I was not expecting to meet some old, gay Galras today.” 

“They’re not that old,” Shiro frowned. 

Lance huffed and crossed his arms, refusing to say anymore. Honestly, he couldn’t decide if he liked Space Dad Shiro or Normal-ish Shiro. Grant it, Space Dad Shiro would have probably scolded him. Then again Normal-ish Shiro was dorky as hell. Like, Lance saw some bits of it back in their paladins’ days but ever since Shiro and Curtis started hanging out, Shiro went to an idol to a dork who was the worst at Mariokart. 

“Oh, come on, Lance. You know were only teasing,” Veronica smiled and gave her youngest brother a hug. 

Lance half-heartily tried to move away but made no move to actually escape Veronica’s hold. “Yeah, yeah, that’s everyone’s favorite pastime, isn’t it?” 

The last half of Lance’s grumble ended yawn, the heavy languid sensation resting upon him. 

Keith was the first to speak up, “You, okay there, Lance?” 

Lance waved off Keith’s concerned. “I’m fine just tired. I ended being way more jittery last night than I thought.” Lance attempted to rub the sleepiness from his face but only seem to make it worse. 

“Didn’t help that Pidge woke me up either.” 

The others gave a nod in agreement. It was no secret that anyone woken up by Pidge was left a little more frazzled. 

Shiro step forward giving Lance a pat on the shoulder. “Why don’t you head back up and take a nap. We’re not doing anything important until tomorrow and we still got a bit until lunch time.” 

“What about-” another yawn interrupted Lance protest. “What about the other Galra?” 

“Keith and I will handle them,” Shiro answered. 

“You just get some rest. We’ll wake you up for lunch later,” Keith added as well. 

Lance nodded, surrendering to the leader figures. In the back of his mind, Lance noted that the two found a good balance between them. An almost stark difference when Shiro had just been found and Keith was finally comfortable in his new position as the head of Voltron. 

“Alright,” Lance stretch his arms before he made his leave. “I’m gonna nap. You. Don’t wake me.” He quickly added, pointing an accusing finger to his sister. 

The other two men gave a light laugh, Shiro giving a quick wave and Keith rolling his eyes before they moved to where the remaining Galras and giant beast were at. And also, Pidge. 

Veronica gave he own eyeroll but took a couple of steps with Lance instead. “Don’t worry,” she smiled. 

But her smile was from a sister, a sister who was plotting something. 

“I know exactly who to send up, _Loverboy_.” 

Rachel, that gossiping snitch! 

Veronica quickly turned on her heel with a smugness of a sibling who got good dirt at the other’s expense. Leaving Lance alone with no way of venting out or denying Veronica’s false claim. 

So, Lance did the next best thing, walked his way out of the hangar and to his room, intent on putting an alarm on so his sister couldn’t send Keith up. 

Lance ran himself to a wall. 

If his cheeks were tinted pink before then his whole face was bright red now. 

Why did Lance’s brain put Keith in. Veronica could have been talking about anyone. It could have been Coran she was planning on sending! 

But no, it was Keith. 

Lance didn’t know why everyone was up in his and Keith’s business, but they were. The only one who hasn’t yet was Shiro, but who knows. Maybe he was and he just doing on Keith’s side. 

If that was true then at least that was one less person being nosy and weird about Lance’s life. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith is indeed an awkward and dense mullet-head.

“So…” 

“… So?” 

Shiro and Keith were walking down the many hallways of the ATLAS. They have just finish settling down the remaining Galras in charge of taking care of Devo and learn some interesting tidbits about the enormous creature. Matt Holt had also arrived with N-7, turning the show and tell into an exposition on the energy consumption, retention, and exertion of living animals with inorganic compounds. Leaving Shiro and Keith out of their depth and into the hall. Which lead them to Shiro’s shit attempt at being subtle. 

“I see you finally asked Lance for help.” 

A part of Keith wondered if this was what having a sibling was like. 

“Yeah, what about it?” 

Shiro shrugged, his face remaining mostly neutral. “I’m just surprised you asked, that’s all.” 

Keith kept a side glance to the other man, the cogs in his head already turning and preparing for the inevitable topic. 

“Lance is the best sniper and spotter there is, and he knows how we all work. On an important mission like this, it’d be stupid not to ask for his help,” Keith answered with the same level of professionalism he used when dealing with foreign dignitaries. 

This time Shiro lifted an eyebrow and glance back at his fellow leader. “And the last dozen or so ‘important’ missions didn’t warrant Lance’s expertise?” 

There was a time Keith felt as though he could talk about almost anything to Shiro and be met with an honest response. Back then Shiro was a kind man who treated Keith like an equal even when Keith himself didn’t feel like he should have been. Shiro would be so patient with Keith’s hot-tempered emotions and always knew when to stop pushing when Keith felt it was too much. 

Now Shiro was an asshole. 

“Yes,” Keith grounded out through his teeth and sped up just a pace faster. 

But Shiro followed and match the other man’s pace just as quickly and smoothly. 

Asshole. 

“That’s good to hear. You and Lance have always worked really well together,” the captain of the IGF ATLAS commented. 

And there it was. The metaphorical Pandora’s box. It wasn’t _just_ the topic of Lance, per say, that brought about Shiro’s bizarre behavior. It was the topic of Lance _and_ Keith. 

Keith wasn’t an idiot. He knew his relationship with Lance had shifted dramatically. The shift started years ago, when Keith first became the head of Voltron. The comradery inspired by rivalry and spite turned to absolute faith and reassurance. But Keith and Lance were both stubborn people with a heart of gold. So, when Shiro came back and Keith had an opportunity to step down, he took it. Keith went to the Blade because he knew Voltron needed people like Lance and Shiro. The universe needed people who were charismatic and easy to talk too. It didn’t need someone standoffish and awkward like Keith. 

It all seemed to be going well at the time, grant it Keith was a little busy to notice the effects of his disappearing act with the two-year time different and the absolute chaos that Lotor created. Even when everyone was heading to Earth Keith failed to realize how easily he and Lance fell into their roles with little communication between the two. 

It wasn’t until the defeat of Sendak did Keith realized how much his and Lance relationship had changed. They were both stubborn people who would do what was best and their teamwork was what movies were made of. 

But Lance had a family. A family that he missed. And he deserved to spend as much time as he wanted with them. 

It was also a great excused to avoid Lance without being a complete ass about it. 

Because Keith like-like Lance. 

Like, a lot. 

So, since Keith was a bit clueless about relationships in general, he had promptly shut a lid on it and shoved into a dark corner. 

Until Shiro found it. 

Luckily the older man had respect for Keith’s privacy and never actually tried to open the stupid box. Shiro just waved it around annoyingly. 

“You two should go out.” 

Or Shiro could dunk the entire content of the box right on Keith head. 

Keith halted in his steps, face turning bright red as tried his best to sputter out a sentence. “You- Where- What!?” 

“I said you two should hang out,” Shiro repeated. 

Except Keith was pretty sure that wasn’t exactly what Shiro said, judging by the little side glances and his overall avoidance at looking at Keith. 

What a fucking liar. 

But if Shiro was lying then Pandora’s box would stay close. 

“Well maybe,” Keith hummed after regaining his composure. “I’m sure he’ll want to settle down and catch up with everyone first.” Technically, Lance has already done that with Keith earlier but not in depth and like hell he was going to tell Shiro that. 

“You could also take him down to the rec hall, later. Or, take him to the observation deck,” Shiro suggested. “You, know after you guys have lunch.” 

Alright, now it just sounded like Shiro was making date suggestions. 

This time Keith only gave a hummed of acknowledgment, subsequently ending the conversation. 

The two walked in silence. Neither of them speaking, nor confirming their supposed joint location. That wasn’t to say that Keith himself didn’t have a destination in mind, but it was more Shiro following Keith without making it look like he was just following the younger man. 

If the two men where to continue wandering about then Shiro would start another conversation and then steer it back to the figurative Pandora’s box. But again, Keith had a destination in mind. A place where plenty of people were present. The gymnasium. 

“Well, this is my stop,” Keith announced once they reach the main entrance to the gym. 

“I need to tell Axca and the others that the Guards of Lystii are here, and I bet you need to get back to the bridge.” Keith looked at the older man, silently daring the other to object. 

Shiro didn’t bother hiding his disappointment, giving a small pout. “Alright, I leave you to it then.” 

Keith felt a small bout of relief, glad that Shiro didn’t try to extent his company longer. 

“I’ll see you later, okay?” 

This time Shiro gave a smile, “Of course.” 

With that, the two parted ways, Shiro back to the bridge and Keith to the innards of the gym. 

The rest of the weight dropped off Keith’s shoulders as he walked inside. Relieved he didn’t have that talk with Shiro. Although Keith began to wonder how much longer he could stave off the surprisingly nosy man. 

Off to the other end of the gym the loud laughter of Zethrid echoed through. She wore a simple work out outfit and stood proudly in the middle of a platform with people watching from the side and a lone alien walking away from Zethrid’s beaming glee. 

“Alright! Who’s next?” the bulky Galra called, scanning the crowd for any potential opponents. 

Soon, someone stepped up, another bulky alien with four arms and hard scales. 

“Hmph! Alright, show what you got, big boy!” Zethrid goaded while getting into her fighting stance. 

Someone called to the start of the match but whatever was happening in the ring was lost to Keith. Impromptu matches were a regular spiel with Zethrid wherever she went. Besides, Keith actually did need to tell Axca and Ezor about the arrival of the other Galra and Devo, they could relay the info to Zethrid later. 

It took a bit with the huge crowd of people around the platform, but Keith found Axca and Ezor leaning against the back wall watching the brawl at a distance. 

“Axca, Ezor,” Keith called as he approached the two women. 

“Hey, boss,” came Ezor’s chirpy reply as she and Axca turned their attention to Keith. 

“Keith, what bring you here? I thought you were with Lance,” Axca asked. 

Keith blinked; a bit stumped. He told his team about Lance coming to assist them but nothing about when he was coming. “How did you know Lance was here?” Keith blurted out a bit dumbly. 

“Veronica informed me.” 

Oh, that made sense. Axca and Veronica were good friends after all. 

“Well, that’s not the reason why I came here,” Keith quickly pushed off. “I just wanted to let you guys know that the Guards of Lystii and Devo are here, including the four major commanders.” 

“What? Those guys are already here? They’re a bunch of wierdos,” Ezor sulked, drooping her shoulder. 

A part of Keith had to remember he was the leader of a humanitarian organization and he should not roll his eyes at his subordinates. 

“Ezor, don’t call them that,” Axca lightly scolded her teammate. 

“But it’s true,” Ezor pouted. “You know, for being basically full Galra, they have no idea how to act around others of their own species.” 

Which was true. In Keith’s own experience the Guards of Lystii were unnaturally friendly and open compare to other run-of-the-mill Galra but clammed up immediately at the sight of another outside their social circle. They acted perfectly fine and normal around himself, Axca, and Ezor, but almost bolted at the sight of Zethrid who shared a more typical Galra appearance. It didn’t help that Zethrid had taken offense to it and tried to instigate a fight with them. Which only made her more terrifying and made them avoid her worse than the plague. 

“Look, it’s all the same thing: old elitist value from the Zarkon’s rule.” Keith huffed setting a hard glare to exuberant Galra-mix in front of him. “Just because their full Galra doesn’t mean they got a free pass.” 

This time Ezor let out a sigh, “Fine, I’ll make sure Zethrid doesn’t make them cry like overgrown babies.” Which, in all honestly, did happen when a Guard was accidently left alone with Zethrid. 

“Good,” Keith nodded after Ezor’s statement. 

And that sort of left him with the two half-Galra standing in the ATLAS’ gym. 

Since there wasn’t anything more for Keith to tell them. 

Because he just needed an excuse from Shiro’s nosy probing. 

Which Keith accomplished. 

So… 

Axca and Ezor exchange a quick glance to each other, waiting for what their leader wanted to tell them. 

A beeping cut the awkward silence between the three. Axca reached into her back pocket and fished out a regular Blade issued com. 

“Oo~~, is that McClain?” Ezor cooed as she moved shoulder to shoulder with long standing teammate. 

“Lance?” Keith blurted; a hint of heat came to his cheeks. 

Axca shook her head, typing into her com. “No, it’s Veronica.” 

“Why, did you want it to be the other McClain?” Ezor asked with an excited trill to her voice. 

The heat in Keith’s cheeks started to get a little bit warmer. “No.” 

Ezor gave her leader a knowing smirk before she turned her attention back at Axca. “Hey, remember when me and Zethrid thought you and Keith were a thing?” 

“No,” was all Axca replied before her com dinged another incoming message. 

“Oh, come on. You have to admit that was pretty naïve of us, huh?” 

“A shallow conclusion? Yes.” 

This time Ezor huffed in annoyance. “Well, anybody now can clearly see it all about you and Veronica.” 

That earn her a flat look from Axca, which triggered a smirk back from Ezor. 

“Keith,” Axca started, turning away from pink Galra. “Veronica wanted to let you know that Lance is resting back in his room.” 

The sudden change of topic took Keith by surprised as he tried to process the words given to him. “Um, okay. Why did Lance’s sister wanted to tell me that?” 

This time it was Axca that took a paused before she typed back on her com, most likely asking the person in question directly. A few moments later, a ding sounded off. 

“She said ‘because’, opening parenthesis, empty box, empty box, empty box, empty box, empty box, empty box, closing parenthesis.” Axca read. 

“What?” 

Axca turned the com for Keith to read. 

‘Because ()’ the message read. 

Keith squinted at the empty boxes. 

“I believe the boxes are supposed to relay some sort of message,” Axca offered. 

On the other side, Ezor wrinkled her nose, “boxes?” she muttered and pulled the com for her to see. 

“Axca, it means your com doesn’t understands emoticons. And probably emojis,” Ezor explained. 

Both Axca and Keith blinked at Ezor’s explanation. 

Instead of trying to explain further, Ezor opted to pulling out her own com. “Hey, V, your girlfriend’s com doesn’t get any emoticons or emojis,” she typed out. 

A ding later Ezor received her own message and flip her com for the other to see. “See this is what it’s supposed to be.” 

‘( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)’ 

Keith immediately flushed at the emoticon. He didn’t know what the face exactly meant, but Pidge had spammed him enough time to get a hint. 

Another ding rang off Ezor com, “Whoops, I was only supposed to show Axca that.” 

Keith ran his hand through his hair, simultaneously and discreetly trying to calm the blood rushing up to his cheeks. “Isn’t she Lance’s sister? Why would type something like that?” 

Axca lifted an eyebrow in response while Ezor had a face splitting grin. 

What little blood Keith manage to push down came rushing back full force. “I’m done here,” he growled and began walking away from the two Galra females. 

Ezor gave out a soft laugh at Keith’s retreating figure, “You know, it would probably be safer if she just sent a smiley face.” 

“Isn’t that a smiley face?” Axca questioned gesturing to the emoticon on Ezor’s com. 

“…Oh, sweetie…” 

In all honesty, Keith did not go from the gym to Lance’s room. He first went to his own room, stared at the clock, and then went to Lance’s room when lunch time finally came by. 

Besides, Keith didn’t even notice he was heading to Lance’s room until he was about to knock on the other man’s door. 

He was blushing a lot these past couple of hours. 

A quick survey proved Keith was completely alone in the hall, so no one would see him standing around a closed door. 

He took a calming breath, trying to soothe his nerves. It was true that Keith was actually happy to have Lance on his side, but another part couldn’t help but to feel a little bit guilty about bringing Lance to the front lines. In a way all the paladins had taken a step back from the front lines, it was just Lance took a bigger step than anyone else. 

That was really the big issue Keith struggled with the most. 

His and Lance’s world didn’t twirl around each other anymore. Hell, they probably didn’t even revolve around the same star either. A part of Keith even felt that Lance was settling for way less than what he was supposed to. Hunk was the perfect dignitary, the guy practically smelled friend with all the cooking he did but also had the backbone to put his foot down and tell people they were in the wrong. Pidge’s brilliant mind pretty much crushed whatever obstacle was in their way to getting to the latest tech while their sassy attitude pinned them to be the most renowned techie there ever was. And Shiro was absolutely the type of guy who had no concept of retirement. A bit worrying at times, but unless Shiro found something else other than space, space is where he was going to be. Keith himself was a guy who was always on the move so being part of humanitarian relief group that went from planet to planet suited him just fine. The leader part he could do without but Keith kind of just found himself there. They all had found a new place save for Lance. 

Lance just went home. 

Sure, Lance would come out and do his speeches and lectures for different civilization here and there, but other than that, he mostly just stood home. 

And that was kind of it. 

Keith already went through all the stages of confusion, fear, and acceptances. There was even a time where he blamed Allura for Lance’s choice to stay home. He felt like a total ass afterwards, but it had happened. Throw in the fact a part of Keith was a little bit jealous of Allura and started thinking Lance as more as a friend the shit storm of emotions in Keith’s head was bound to ruin the peace that Lance had. 

So, keeping distance from the man sounded like the most logical thing to do. It gave Keith time to calm the storm inside and kept him from doing something stupid. Then fucking Shiro somehow caught whiff of Keith’s feeling for Lance and started poking his nose in it. 

To this day, Keith isn’t quite sure how Shiro found out and it also threw him a bit of a loop when the older man started suggesting he and Lance should hang out outside of their usual group get togethers. There was also the fact that Shiro was just a private person in general, but given the situation concerning Shiro’s personal love life pre-Kerberos, it made sense. Then of course there was the whole Axca-Veronica debacle. The two women were good friends but Axca was just as awkward as Keith when it came to basic interaction while Veronica was just as social as her younger brother. Keith had to dodge invitation after invitation that Axca had extended to Keith when the older McClain sister invited the Galras to the family home. That of course, tip off Ezor, and by extension, Zethrid, to Keith master plan of avoiding any alone time with Lance. It was just by pure luck that Ezor and Zethrid were more interested in Axca’s relationship with Veronica than they were with Keith’s with Lance. 

Lance who had just open his door and was now staring wide eyed at Keith. 

The two had almost knocked their heads together before movinging apart. Leaving the other stunned and standing in the empty hall. After a few moments, Lance’s eyes narrowed, and he began to search the hallway they were in. 

“I swear- Did my sister sent you here?!” Lance questioned with the same narrowed eyes scanning Keith up and down. 

Keith took a step back, uncomfortable with the fact Lance had always had the incessive need to crowd someone’s personal space when he got mad. 

“No, I mean she told me you were back in your room but that’s about it.” 

Lance leaned back away from Keith’s personal space but still had the narrow accusing look on his face. “Really? Did she tell you directly? Does she even have your number?” 

“Uh, no. She had Axca tell me,” Keith answered. 

Lance threw his head back and let out an exasperated groan, unconsciously showing Keith the smooth skin of his neck and the sharp collarbone that jutted outwards. “I knew it, she had an outside compliance somewhere. Why are my sisters so horrible?” Lance’s hand came up to rub the side of his temple. “Keith, you’re lucky you don’t have any siblings hell bent on making your life miserable.” 

Keith gave a soft laugh; this was more the Lance he was used to. The one who was always a bit more dramatic than he was supposed to be. 

Lance frown turned to a full-on pout at the sound of Keith’s laugh. “Rude, here I am in agony and you’re just laughing at me.” 

That only made the smile on Keith’s face to stretch wider. “It’s more like I know what you mean. Shiro been kind of acting like an over-bearing brother,” Keith offer. 

“Really? I’d trade all my brothers and sisters for Shiro, hands down.” 

“No, you wouldn’t. He’s a great teacher and leader but sucks at trying make small talk when it’s not about small talk.” 

Suddenly, Lance’s eyes lit up, a smile replacing the pout. “Dude. No. You know who’s the absolute worst? Hunk.” 

Another laughter escape Keith’s lips, “What? Hunk? How is he worse than Shiro?” 

“No, listen, it’s totally true! He may not suck at being subtle, but he gives this one _look_! It makes me mad just thinking about it.” 

The laughter only became louder. “Look? What look?” 

It was always entertaining to see Lance talk. Everything from fingertip to fingertip would be involved whenever he got excited. “You know, the look. That one he gives when he thinks and let you know your full of shit and should be ashamed of yourself.” 

“What? No way. Pidge is way more judgmental than Hunk is,” Keith counter, unable to escape the easy flow of their conversation. 

“Pft, as if. Pidge is just a little shit when she wants to be. Hunk, on the other hand, is a man you do not want to go against. Trust me, there’s a reason why only good things comes out of Hunk’s dignitary trips.” 

“What? And Pidge isn’t?” 

“With Pidge, at least you know not to cross her. Besides, once she’s done with chewing you up and spitting you out, your good, man. With Hunk, you get on his shit list, you’re on the shit list for life!” 

“No, way. I rather deal with Hunk’s feeding me bad food than Pidge’s cyber terror.” 

“Keith, Keith, Keith. You poor, naïve mullet.” 

“-Not a mullet.” 

“You only say that because you only know Hunk from one side, the friend side. You don’t know him like I do, and let me tell you, that side is terrifying!” 

“No, I still think Pidge is worst.” 

“Hey! Who’s talking shit about me!?” 

The two men were pulled out of their discussion by the loud voice of the one and only Pidge. Hunk was also by their side as the pair walk up the hall to meet the famous red and blue duo. 

“Hey, guys, fancy meeting you both here,” came Hunk’s greeting as he and Pidge approached the two. 

“Wow, don’t I feel special. It looks like everyone want get a piece of McClain today,” Lance grinned. 

“Ew, don’t ever say that again,” Pidge cringed with Hunk and Keith mimicking her. 

“Beside we went to the gym first to look for Keith, first.” 

Hunk nodded in agreement, “Mh-hm, you know, we thought we’d check just in case.” 

Keith lifted a brow in confusion, “‘Just in case’ what?” 

“Really, you don’t know why?” Pidge responded dryly. 

At Pidge remark, Keith gave a look to Lance that simply said ‘see!’ 

Lance let out a sigh, “Oh, Keith. You poor, naïve mullet-head.” He began to pat Keith head in condolences. 

“Stop calling it a mullet,” Keith grouched, swatting away Lance’s hand. 

Their attentions were pulled back by Pidge exaggerated groan. “Alright, alright, break it up you two. Me and Hunk didn’t come all this way just to see whatever it is you guys are doing,” They motion vaguely towards Keith’s and Lance’s direction. 

Lance let out an indignant scoff, causing another small smile to form on Keith’s lips. 

“Okay, I get it. Let’s go to lunch,” Keith announced, taking lead of the group as they began their way towards the mess hall. 

On the other side of Keith was Pidge while Hunk and Lance walked behind them a couple paces. At the corner of his eyes he noticed Pidge looking at him. 

“What?” he asked innocently. 

Pidge pucker their lips like they were trying to figure out some sort of coding flaw. “Nuh’n’,” they finally said and turned their glaze forward. 

Before Keith was able to ask for more, Lance gave out a cry. 

“Keith! See! It’s that Look! That’s the goddamn look I was talking about!” Lance started point to Hunk’s face. Which, honestly, just look more relax to Keith that what Lance was referring to. 

“Lance, I’m going have to straight with you, bud. I don’t have a single idea what you’re talking about,” Hunk stated calmly in contrast to Lance vindictive pointing. 

“Yes, you do,” Lance shot back. 

Keith raised in own eyebrows in confusion, “Lance I don’t do get it, either.” 

That made Lance stop altogether to set Keith with a glare. 

“Of course, you don’t, Keith. Of course, you don’t.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter my be a bit odd. It was really hard to get this chapter written but I at least wanted to get a view on Keith's side while also giving Lance a break.   
> You would think Keith would be easier to write since his mannerism is similar with mine, but I observe other people not myself so... ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯  
> Also I don't know why, but whenever Keith and Lance are together, they just end up talking.
> 
> Last piece, Hunk is canonically half-black, he got that judgmental ass look, I just fucking know it.


End file.
